Montford wants raises for state employees

PANAMA CITY — State Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, is spearheading an effort to get state employees their first raise in six years.

Matthew Beaton / The News Herald

PANAMA CITY — State Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, is spearheading an effort to get state employees their first raise in six years.

Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, is on board, and the two lawmakers have been in talks on how to make it a reality.

Montford said there are two ways to get state employees a raise — through legislation or by working within the budget. He chose the latter and won’t be sponsoring a bill with Gaetz.

“I’ve elected to go through the budget process,” he said, noting it’s the more frequently used route.

Now it’s a matter of finding the money.

Gov. Rick Scott has yet to reveal his budget, but Montford is hoping for a surplus, due to the recovering economy. That surplus revenue would be passed on to state employees.

Montford was quick to say this will be another “lean year,” but not as bad as past ones. He said it all hinges on how much revenue the Legislature can earmark for state employee raises.

Montford was reticent to give hard numbers on the raise, but said it won’t exceed 5 percent. Regardless, he said the budget won’t be trimmed in other areas to free up money for state employees.

“I don’t know anywhere that we can cut, because we have cut budgets for the last five or six years,” he said.

Any raise would be welcome news to state employees who already took a hit this month when the Florida Supreme Court upheld a 2011 law forcing them to contribute 3 percent of their salaries to their pensions. The law obligates county employees to do the same.

Montford said the budget would become much clearer in the next three to four weeks. He sits on the Appropriations Committee, so he’ll get a first hand look at the budget and all its inner workings. He said serving on the committee gives him a chance to work within the process and present his case to the committee.

Montford said ultimately his proposal will be “reasonable and attainable.” He suggested doing a partial raise retroactive to Jan. 1 and then a second raise in July — 2 percent now and 2 percent in July.

“By I’m not sure that we can get there,” he said.

Also Montford said salary is only one piece of a bigger picture, which includes state employee benefits that should be safeguarded.

Montford said he and Gaetz aren’t the only ones who want to help state employees. He said a lot of senators and representatives think it’s time for a raise. Based on that level of interest, he’s “cautiously optimistic” it will happen this year.

Meanwhile, Gaetz said he is ready to tap the brakes and manage expectations.

“It’s way too early to either promise or even speculate on an across the board pay raise because we haven’t seen the governor’s budget yet,” he said.

Gaetz also expressed concerns about the looming threats of sequestration, which would substantially cut the military in Florida and send the state’s economy into a tailspin.

“So much of our economic forecast is tied to what may happen in Washington with defense-related jobs,” he said, calling sequestration a “mindless reduction in the defense sector.”

But if a raise is possible, Gaetz is on board.

“There’s no question that state employees have gone too long without a pay raise. I believe that they deserve a pay raise, and that we ought to do what we can to provide one this year,” he said.

Gaetz said the state has no appetite for tax increases, so the money would have to come from additional revenue or a tradeoff in the budget. But he said whatever the Legislature can scrape together would be a boon for state employees.

“I think people who haven’t had any recognition of their hard work for six years would welcome any raise,” he said.